Police Corruption

Only rarely does a judge in a criminal case overturn the verdict reached by jurors in her own courtroom. Still rarer is the judge who admits to committing an error so serious it taints a verdict. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Connor did both Friday night in an extraordinary ruling that overturned the convictions of three Rampart Division police officers, impressing legal scholars with both her tightly reasoned legal arguments and her unusual candor.

CURITIBA, Brazil -- The head of a newspaper renowned for reporting on crime and corruption was shot to death Tuesday in a town outside Rio de Janeiro, the latest in a string of apparent assassinations of Brazilian journalists. Jose Roberto Ornelas de Lemos, 45, was shot 44 times by four men while he was drinking at a neighborhood bar in the town of Nova Iguacu, witnesses said, and police believe the motive may have been to silence the reporting done by his newspaper, Hora H. "We aren't ruling out any hypothesis, but our main hypothesis is that Lemos may have been killed because of the combative profile of the journal he was in charge of," said police officer Marcos Henrique de Oliveira Alves, according to the newspaper Estado de Sao Paulo.

A former gang member who won a $15 million judgment after he was shot and framed by corrupt Los Angeles police officers more than a decade ago was arrested Sunday night after leading Glendale police on a high-speed chase, his second arrest in a week, authorities said. Javier Francisco Ovando, 31, was arrested about 8:15 p.m. Sunday after leading police on an hour-long chase that reached speeds of up to 90 mph on local streets and freeways, said Sgt. Tom Lorenz of the Glendale Police Department.

MOSCOW - The Russian underworld calls him "Sportsman" for his physical strength and stamina. Police identify him as "High-Tech" because of his allegedly ingenious ways of stealing luxury cars. Now Igor Lovygin has captivated Russia for daring behavior this week apparently motivated by the accidental death of one of his young daughters, who drowned during a family vacation in Dubai. Lovygin, 36, the reputed leader of the country's most brazen car theft gang and a murder suspect wanted by authorities, accompanied his daughter's coffin to Russia, was arrested at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow, and then escaped from officers Wednesday night after being transferred to St. Petersburg.

Federal investigators are preparing to search a garbage-strewn hillside near downtown Tijuana for the graves of three people who an informant claims were buried there by former Los Angeles Police Department officers Rafael Perez and David Mack, law enforcement sources confirmed Tuesday. The search, expected to occur within days, is part of an ongoing federal investigation aimed at corroborating the allegations of 23-year-old Sonia Flores, Perez's former lover.

"Battle Against Bad Cops Isn't Fought Only in L.A." (May 28) provides an important perspective on a problem that may be best solved at the national level. Many countries, including Canada and Great Britain, enjoy the protection and efficiency of a national police force, making corruption in individual locales much harder to hide and multiplying the law enforcement capacities of each. The cost savings of shared administrative functions, including training, personnel review and the building, maintenance and use of databases (especially DNA, where the U.S. is so far behind countries like Great Britain)

Detective Sgt. Michael Drury was feeding his child when two gunshots tore through the kitchen window and into his stomach and shoulder. Drury, an undercover agent of the New South Wales police, the largest force in Australia, survived. The bullet missed his heart after deflecting off a curtain rod. Five years later, questions about the shooting remain unanswered amid allegations of police corruption, treachery and deception.

Aaron Patterson is a death row inmate who claims police officers punched him and suffocated him with a plastic typewriter cover 15 years ago to extract a false confession in the killings of an elderly couple. A few years ago, Patterson's claims might have been dismissed. But beginning Monday, his claims will get a new hearing under orders from the Illinois Supreme Court.

Osiel Cardenas was a cop with dreams. He was a lowly police communications specialist who wanted the fame and fortune won by other law enforcement officials in this city bordering Texas. So, say authorities, he followed their path: He became a drug trafficker. Cardenas is now a top target of U.S. authorities, not only for drug charges but for allegedly threatening two American agents at gunpoint in Matamoros--then throwing a party to celebrate.

More than 1,000 people angered by alleged police corruption took to the streets of a crime-ridden neighborhood in Osaka, burning barricades and pelting Japanese riot police with firebombs and rocks. At least 106 people, including 83 police officers, have been injured in several days of violence. The run-down neighborhood is known for its gangs, transient laborers and shabby hotels.

Britain's bestselling tabloid on Monday launched a blistering attack on the police for arresting five of its journalists over the weekend in an investigation of media corruption and unethical practices undertaken as a result of the country's phone hacking scandal. Scotland Yard is treating reporters at Rupert Murdoch's Sun newspaper "like members of an organized crime gang," said Trevor Kavanagh, the paper's associate editor. He lashed out at what he called a police "witch hunt," warned that Britain was falling behind former Soviet bloc countries in terms of press freedom and criticized police raids on journalists' homes during which officers sifted through "intimate possessions, love letters and entirely private documents.

About 3,200 Mexican federal police officers, nearly a tenth of the force, have been fired this year under new rules designed to weed out crooked cops and modernize law enforcement, officials said Monday. The housecleaning is part of President Felipe Calderon's crackdown on drug cartels, which includes overhauling the 34,500-strong federal police force. An additional 465 federal officers have been charged with breaking the law, and 1,020 others face disciplinary action after failing screening tests, officials said.

It was meant to be a smoking gun: A grainy security video that proved police corruption. Officers said they had stopped Rafat Abdallah because his white Mercedes was missing a license plate. During a search of the car, they discovered a loaded handgun -- a serious crime for a convicted felon like Abdallah. But the footage, taken from a surveillance camera, clearly showed a license plate on Rafat Abdallah's white Mercedes as he left his business just moments before officers pulled him over.

Those who think that Cancun is safe from the drug wars raging in Mexico aren't keeping current on events there. ["On the Spot," March 22]. The Cancun police chief has been arrested in connection with the murder of a retired Mexican army general, hired by the city. His specialty was battling police corruption. Think that's not drug-related? Warren Cereghino Pacific Palisades

A team of gunmen in southeastern Mexico opened fire on the homes of a state police officer and his extended family, killing 12 people, including a 2-year-old and five other children, authorities said Sunday. The shootings Saturday night in the state of Tabasco stunned an oil-rich part of Mexico that has not experienced the same level of drug-related warfare common elsewhere in the country, despite its position of strategic importance to traffickers.

A retired assistant sheriff testified Thursday that he did not recall the department releasing a drunk-driving defendant from jail at the request of Newport Beach millionaire Don Haidl, a key government witness who made the allegation in the corruption trial of former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona. Kim Markuson was one of five witnesses called by attorneys Brian A.

A police officer claims he was treated unfairly and his career was damaged in a case that raises accusations of corruption in the San Francisco Police Department. Accusations stemming from the $5-million lawsuit filed by Officer Alfred De La Cerda include claims that some narcotics officers tipped drug dealers to raids, accepted payoffs for protection and, in some cases, dealt drugs themselves.

As the prosecution drew to a close Wednesday in the federal corruption trial of former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona, defense attorneys acknowledged they were scrambling to line up witnesses. The government's final witness, an FBI agent, took the stand minutes before court adjourned and will be back this morning as prosecutors wrap up nearly seven weeks of testimony. At day's end Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Atty.

December 10, 2008 | Ken Ellingwood, Ellingwood is a Times staff writer.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Tuesday said his government was making strides against corruption but warned that graft remained a threat to the nation's efforts against crime. Calderon, speaking on International Anti-Corruption Day, said 11,500 public servants had been sanctioned for corruption since he took office in December 2006. Fines against them totaled more than $300 million, he said.